Unemployed face losing benefit unless they spend several hours per day seeking work and accept jobs within 90-minute radius

The Conservatives have revealed plans to require unemployed people to look for a job for several hours a day and to be willing to accept a job anywhere within a 90-minute radius of their home, or lose their benefit. A jobseeker who fails to take up a reasonable job offer three times will be debarred from receiving benefit for three years.

A new DWP IT system will also make it easier for Jobcentre Plus staff to monitor the amount of jobseeking an unemployed person is undertaking, including how many job applications they have filled out. Trials will also be undertaken to require the jobless to sign on every week, rather than fortnightly. The proposals had been due to be in Monday's speech delivered by Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, but were pulled at the last minute in the expectation that they would be presented by David Cameron in interviews the prime minister conducted on Tuesday.

Unusually, neither the name Duncan Smith, nor any quote from him was included in the press release issued by the Conservative party on Tuesday morning. There have also been suggestions that more radical proposals were shelved at the last minute....Read more here----> Conservatives crack down on jobseekers with tougher rules | Politics | guardian.co.uk